{"id":1285,"date":"2012-04-24T09:09:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-23T22:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2021-08-02T17:36:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T07:06:39","slug":"ian-dunbar-on-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/dog-training-dog-behaviour\/ian-dunbar-on-punishment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Dunbar on Punishment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><small><small>This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar&#8217;s 2012 Australian seminars. See\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/aboutblog\/the-dunbar-index\/\">index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Ian Dunbar chooses to look at punishment in a different way to most modern trainers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When we look at things that are punishing (or are supposed to be punishing) then we can ask two questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is it punishing (does it reduce the behaviour\u2019s frequency)? and<\/li>\n<li>Is it painful or scary?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From here, there are four possible scenarios:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Punishment that is painful or scary, and changes behaviour, is effective but undesirable (that is, it is not desirable to hurt or scare dogs).<\/li>\n<li>Punishment that is painful or scary but doesn\u2019t change behaviour is abusive.<\/li>\n<li>Punishment that is not painful or scary and doesn\u2019t change behaviour is nagging. It\u2019s annoying, a nuisance.<\/li>\n<li>Punishment that is not painful and not scary, but is effective, is desirable. This is where Ian Dunbar chooses to work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1291\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/100_2838-copy1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1291\" class=\" wp-image-1291 \" title=\"Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy climbing into dishwasher.\" alt=\"Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy climbing into dishwasher.\" src=\"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/100_2838-copy1.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/100_2838-copy1.jpg 500w, http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/100_2838-copy1-300x272.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1291\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dog shouldn&#8217;t be punished for wrong doings when you haven&#8217;t taught them it&#8217;s wrong!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In this way, Ian Dunbar advocates verbal punishment.\u00a0 Verbal punishments can be used to enforce trained behaviours, and is more about tone than volume.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t mean that Dunbar is actually that into punishments.\u00a0 Firstly, the dog needs to be taught the appropriate behaviour (he can\u2019t be punished for something he didn\u2019t know to (not) do).\u00a0 Secondly, the punishment should be instructive and redirective (i.e. propose a solution to the dog \u2013 more on this in another post).\u00a0 Dunbar also advocates repetitive reinstruction of instructive punishment (more on this later, too!).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But, importantly, Dunbar defines 8 rules to punishment. These are listed below.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">8 Rules of Punishment<\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>1. Punishment has to be <em>effective<\/em>.\u00a0 Dunbar believe if a punishment needs to be delivered more than once, then the punishment isn\u2019t effective and is more abusive.\u00a0 He suggests that leash jerks, ineffective yelling, and dogs \u2018still wearing\u2019 a shock collar are dogs that suffering ineffective, abusive punishment.<\/p>\n<p>2. Punishment has to be <em>immediate.\u00a0 <\/em>Dunbar said, \u201cTo delay is inhumane\u201d, and a delay is anything less than 0.5 seconds.\u00a0 Most owners struggle with delivering punishment within a fraction of a second.<\/p>\n<p>3. Punishment has to be <em>instructive.<\/em>\u00a0 Dunbar categorized leash jerks as not-instructive.\u00a0 This includes providing the dog with opportunities to not be punished.<\/p>\n<p>4. Punishment must be <em>appropriate.\u00a0 <\/em>That is, the punishment should fit the crime, with \u2018harsher\u2019 corrections for more heinous behaviour.\u00a0 (These harsh corrections should occur within a \u2018praise sandwhich\u2019, with lots of praise for the behaviours before and after that were good.)<\/p>\n<p>5. Punishment should only be delivered when <em>appropriate behaviour is known.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>6. Punishment should only follow a <em>warning<\/em>.\u00a0 Dogs should be given the opportunity to avoid the punishment.<\/p>\n<p>7. <em>Rewards are always preferred.<\/em>\u00a0 It is much easier to reward the one \u2018right\u2019 behaviour, than punish a bunch of less desirable behaviours.<\/p>\n<p>8. Punishments must be <em>consistent<\/em>.\u00a0 A punishment must occur each and every time the dog misbehaves, as inconsistent punishments act as random negative reinforcers (a strong form of reinforcement).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If you\u2019re interested in more insights on punishment, you might like to read <a href=\"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/mcgreevy-on-punishing-dogs\/\">Paul McGreevy\u2019s thoughts on punishing dogs<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notes from Ian Dunbar&#8217;s seminar on punishing dogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[12,11,376,375,427,252,429,428],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-training-dog-behaviour","tag-dog","tag-dogs","tag-dunbar","tag-ian-dunbar","tag-punishing","tag-punishment","tag-rules","tag-verbal-punishment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4951,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions\/4951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}